


Gaps in Sunlight

by iamsomebody



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Dark, Happy Ending, Hikaku Uchiha, M/M, Mito Uzumaki - Freeform, Original Character(s), Senju Hashirama - Freeform, Uchiha Madara - Freeform, no valley of the end here, they have minor interactions but they're there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25412974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamsomebody/pseuds/iamsomebody
Summary: Madara Uchiha is a creature having emerged from fire, shadow, and blood.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 24
Kudos: 117





	Gaps in Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first naruto fic ever, and it's a result of rewatching and finally finishing the whole damn show.
> 
> 11 year old me would be proud, 16 year old me would bully me, but anyways.
> 
> Comments, kudos and bookmarks are always appreciated~
> 
> @satyr_legs on twitter  
> @sideof-eelsauce on tumblr

Madara Uchiha is a creature having emerged from fire, shadow, and blood. 

Somedays, he feels that despite how often and rigorous he bathes himself, dipping his hands into scalding, soapy water, the sensation of dirt and ash under his fingernails and in his knotted hair refuses to leave, and the bloody wraiths of the lives he has ended cling to his skin. He can hear them when the moon is high and the sky is cloudless, its brilliant white light deepening the shadows stretching from his heels, joining with those in the corners of his home. When he was in war, the time to notice these things was a luxury. Hauntings and remorse had no place in humid tents holding wounded, angry, and hungry men. 

Peace was different. 

Peace, which is what Hashirama and he had yearned for years and years and years, had proven to be harder to swallow than Madara had imagined. It was woven into the wood used to construct the homes and buildings of the village and it was delicate in the air they breathed, punctuating and ending their sentences. It disturbed Madara, it disturbed him the first night spent with no conflict, and it disturbed him still. The quiet allows him to think, and Madara, despite the intelligent and strategic man he is, does not wish to let his mind wander. He’s come to know better. It has the habit of unearthing abandoned crypts whenever he is alone, soundlessly allowing memories and thoughts to surface, with no incoming enemy invasion or blade swung at his throat to distract him. 

It started with his father, of all people. A week into the newly founded settlement, Madara had awoken to the sound of something dripping slowly onto his wooden floor, and the frigid sensation of someone watching him. He had jolted upright on his mattress, kunai held tightly in his grasp when his eyes widened at the sight at the end of his bedroom. Tucked into the unlit corner opposite him, where the light from the window he slept under did not reach, was his father, bleeding from a fatal wound in his neck. Madara could see the way his skin was peeled back on the side of his neck all the way to his throat, revealing muscle and an oozing dark liquid. 

“ _Traitor_ ,” he spat. 

Madara’s grip did not falter, but he did not dare move. 

His father took a step out from the shadows towards him and he could see the empty sockets where the man’s eyes once were. No, that couldn’t be right, he hadn’t taken his father’s eyes after his death, he had taken his–

“Brother,” another dead voice said, on another night. 

It was never on the same night as his father. Izuna’s phantom seemed to be untethered compared to his. Where his father would only emerge within the walls of his home, if Madara stayed in the office far too long into the night, Hashirama nodding off at his desk as he memorized another scroll and added signatures to another treaty, he’d look over and Izuna was there, a slit of a hole in his chest and a distant look in his murky white eyes, standing behind Tobirama. The stench of death would slowly creep into the room, and Madara had to bite his cheek hard enough to bleed to keep from whimpering at the maggots and flies that squirmed and buzzed throughout the office. 

Once, on a night that Madara was leaning against the open window of Hashirama’s bedroom, Izuna had stood beneath a cherry blossom tree, staring up at him with unblinking eyes. His eyes were still white, nearly glowing in the absence of the sun, and blood had slowly begun to ooze out of them when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. 

“What are you looking at?” 

He had turned to see Hashirama watching him, a concerned crease denting the skin in between his brows. He had imagined the different ways he could tell his friend about what he was seeing, pictured the words he would use to describe the sickly, dull color the skin of his loved ones had and the way no matter how often Madara shut his eyes or drank or deprived himself of sleep to finally slip into unconsciousness, they always came back. 

Instead, Madara had closed his eyes and pressed his palms to his eyelids. 

“I’m just tired, Hashirama.” 

It was partially true. 

The heaviness that clings to his bones during the day and the sore tightness in his chest when he sees his clan members laughing with Senju and others is not from exhaustion. The searing ache that builds behind his eyes and soaks his tongue in silent venom whenever Hashirama and Tobirama go off in tangents about some brotherly quarrel or disagreement is not from any physical fatigue. Madara hates it, he loathes the realization when he has it, as if it wasn’t a recurring event, and swears to never admit it. 

Madara Uchiha is a lonely man. 

__

He’s outside, leaning against the light blue wall of a flower shop in the village, a bag filled with some gardening trinkets Hashirama had needed hanging off his elbow. He’s waiting for him to finish babbling with the shopkeeper, who is absolutely _delighted_ that the hokage is invested in his new herb garden, when he hears someone call out for him. He turns and sees Hikaku walking towards him, two others of their clan beside him. If Madara is remembering correctly, the woman to his right is Aoki Uchiha, her black hair cut short and jagged to show off her sharp face, and the man to his left is Kanda Uchiha, his long thin brown hair framing his round cheeks like icicles. 

“Is there something wrong?” Madara says. 

He can see Hikaku’s thoughts falter for a moment, hesitance flashing in his eyes. Madara knows that he admires him, if he were not the clan-head he’s sure Hikaku would be instead. Aoki groans and shoves at Hikaku’s shoulder, shaking her head after.

“I knew you would be awkward,” she states, then turns her head to look at Madara with a smirk. “A few of us are drinking later tonight, we were wondering if you wanted to join us?”

“I’m not sure tha-”

“That seems like an excellent idea.”

Madara whips his head around to glare at Hashirama, who’s grinning at him. 

“I would prefer you not agree to plans for me, Hashirama.”

He hisses his name through his teeth, but Hashirama doesn’t care. He laughs and slaps a hand against Madara’s shoulder.

“What else did we have planned today, anyways? Drinking sounds fun, come on.”

Madara quirks an eyebrow, “I don’t remember them inviting you.”

At that, Kanda begins to nod.

“O-Of course the Hokage is invited too. We weren’t aware you already had plans for the evening, we can reschedule if anything.”

Hashirama waves his other hand in the air dismissively, “Nonsense. Tonight is fine.” 

Madara wants to hit him, but he doesn’t, and when the sun sets hours later, he finds himself in a bar on the edge of the Uchiha compound, wedged in between Hashirama and the wall. Aoki’s on Hashirama’s other side, the two energetically playing some drinking game Madara had quickly refused to take part in. On the other side of the table Hikaku’s face is slowly becoming more and more red as Kanda, beside him, continues to pour the table shots. There’s another Uchiha with them, but Madara can’t really remember her name. She’s watching Hashirama hungrily, and something hot and unwarranted uncurls in his stomach. He takes another shot and jumps when Hashirama groans loudly, slamming his own cup down onto the table. It shakes all of their cups, but the noise is lost in the loud atmosphere of the bar, every other sticky table near them having their own gathering in the dim, yellow light. 

“How am I _losing_?”

“What are you playing, again?” the unnamed Uchiha woman asks. 

Aoki leans forward over the table, nearly spilling a bottle none of them had screwed shut, and shows off a coin in a flourish of her hand. 

“He can’t figure out which cup I put it under,” she slurs. 

“You have to be cheating,” Hashirama says. 

“I would _never_ cheat against my Hokage,” Aoki announces, placing a hand over her chest, right where her heart is. 

“Hashirama-sama, you must be joking, you don’t know of this game?” Kanda asks. 

He shakes his head, and Madara huffs when he has to swat away some of his brown hair from whacking his face. He can hear Hikaku stifle a bit of laughter. 

“It’s a trick,” Madara says, and Hashirama turns to look at him, the rosiness from drinking that Madara was sure was on all their faces barely present on his tan skin. “Aoki is infamous for this, I’ve heard. You’re lucky you’re not gambling against her.”

Aoki’s face pops up besides Hashirama’s, leaning on his shoulders as if she’s been friends with him for years, and pouts at Madara. 

“Why’d you tell him? I could have built up to that.”

“I would never hear the end of it if he lost actual money,” Madara responds, and then Hashirama is laughing and reaching for the coin. He holds it up to the light, turning it in his hand. 

“Aoki, you must teach me the trick. I could use it as a bargaining chip at Kage meetings.”

It takes Madara a moment to realize that Hashirama had just made a joke, a bad one at that, but when it dawns on him he starts laughing. The others at the table are looking at him, he knows it, but he can’t stop, bracing a hand against his face as the other rests against his stomach. Within moments, Aoki is laughing too, the others joining in slowly after. He’s not even sure if they’re all laughing at the same thing or if it’s just the alcohol stirring their giddiness up, but it doesn't matter. 

__

It starts to happen slowly, but maybe that’s a lie. Maybe it had been happening since he was a boy, slowly growing and blossoming until traitors weeds had overtaken his heart. It had been easier to ignore as a boy, he hadn’t known the word for it yet. He simply cared for Hashirama, he was his friend after all, but something had always felt off about the word. _Friend._ He had friends in his clan, he can remember them, but that word didn’t fit the space that the boy he met at the river had carved into him. As a teenager, he knew more words, knew the rumors that had begun to spread about him, about some of the other boys and girls in the clan. As an adult, there was no room for the words he knew were what he felt towards Hashirama. So, instead, he called out his name across the battle fields they’d meet at, hoping that would be enough to suffice as their blades clashed and their jutsu’s canceled each other. 

But now, Madara was left with the words, and doesn’t want to look at them.

So he doesn’t. 

_I will not be that selfish,_ he thinks to himself. 

_It won’t happen,_ he reminds himself.

But he wishes, and he craves, and he plays the fool. 

When Hashirama and him spar, he gets close, _too_ close. He leaves behind his weapons on the ground and meets each of Hashirama’s evasive steps with an intruding one of his own, dancing around the roots the other summoned. He aims a punch to the other’s stomach and when it's deflected or avoided, he takes the punch Hashirama dishes out in return, wherever it lands scorching with pain and something else he refuses to name. 

During one spar, Hashirama looks absolutely ethereal. 

They’re using weapons this time, a gash Madara had managed to slice on his arm healing slowly, but the sleeve of his navy shirt is torn off, and blood is drying on his arm. His hair is slowly coming undone from the misshapen ponytail he had put it up in, strands of it carried by the wind, constantly moving behind him like waves. When Madara realizes he’s distracted it’s too late and suddenly he feels something heavy tackle him, the air gone from his lungs when his back hits the ground, hard. He hears laughing and realizes that Hashirama had tackled him. It’s not an actual move, there was no real strategy behind it, but the way Hashirama is grinning above him, still holding him down as the sun warps into a nearly blinding halo behind him, stuns him all the same. 

“I win.”

Madara is breathless when he speaks, “Don’t you always?”

Hashirama tilts his head to the side dramatically, curling a finger by his chin. 

“Do I? I swore I thought I was fighting the fearsome, _legendary_ Madara Uchiha, you would think he’d win every now and then.”

Madara rolls his eyes and shoves him off, “Shut up.” 

Hashirama tries to push him down again, digging his heels into the ground, but Madara fights against him, and the two are grunting and laughing, trying to pin the other to the ground. Madara at some point shoves the other’s face into the grass before standing up and sprinting away, Hashirama spitting out dirt as he called after him, chasing him like when they were boys. 

__

He starts to dream of his death. 

It greets him as a blade piercing his heart, straight through his back, of all places. The feeling is strange, there’s no real pain, just numbness leisurely claiming his limbs. When he turns to look behind him, to see who dared to end his life in such a way, he sees familiar brown eyes but they’re cold and blank, and brown hair that’s wet and stuck to tan skin he thought he knew so well.

That’s when the pain would overcome him, all at once. He knows a stab wound shouldn’t make him feel as if his body is smoldering, but it does, and Madara is helpless as his skin is set ablaze and his heart burns as it tries to beat. He tries to turn around, tries to call out for his friend’s name, but the moment he opens his mouth he starts to choke on his tongue, and then the blade is pulled out from his back and Madara wakes up. 

One morning, when the scorching sensation from his death still lingers underneath his skin, he stares at the papers he’s supposed to be working on and closes his eyes.

“Do you believe in dreams?”

Hashirama is the only other person in the office. He feels him look over at him, but Madara keeps his eyes shut. 

“Why do you ask?”

Madara shakes his head, “Just answer.”

“Well,” he begins. Madara hears the creak of a chair’s legs scratch against the floor, and he opens an eye to see Hashirama standing near him. He’s looking down at him as if he’s the moon and it’s too much, it’s always been too much.

“We made ours come true, did we not? That must say something for the rest of them.”

He can’t blame him, but he wants to be angry at his answer, he wants him to know about his nightmares without Madara having to disclose them, he wants Hashirama to know him and to comfort him. But it’s always been easier to be resentful than honest, so Madara looks away from him and clenches his fists under the desk. 

“Ridiculous,” he murmurs. 

Hashirama looks at him for a few more moments, and Madara thinks maybe if Hashirama pesters him, maybe if he insists on knowing why Madara had asked, he’ll tell him, but he hears a sigh from above him and then Hashirama’s footsteps trailing back to his own desk. Madara digs his fingernails into his palms until he feels them prick the skin and breathes. 

__

He doesn’t stop dreaming. 

Some become longer, Madara haunting Hashirama throughout his life until _his_ death. 

_You hurt me in my dreams,_ he thinks, _you hurt me and you never grieve, you never--_

__

He doesn’t know why Hashirama remembers, maybe he had told him once and had forgotten, but he’s at Madara’s door the morning of Izuna’s death anniversary. The sun has barely risen in the sky and Madara opens his door to the sight of a singular white lily in a slim, black vase. It pulls on something in him, and he lets Hashirama inside without a word. He knows he looks like shit, he hasn’t been sleeping well and the bottles are beginning to line up again, half empty in the sink or tossed aside by the trash. Hashirama doesn’t say anything, he knows where he has his brother’s altar and he steps towards it. 

In a curved space between the walls of the kitchen and the living room, Madara has a small, round wooden table set up. It’s the one place in his home that’s truly well kept, regardless of however he’s feeling. There’s a single, white pillar candle that’s currently unlit at the edge, a dark blue ceramic incense holder placed beside it, currently burning a stick that’s a mix of sage and amber. There’s no dust settled on his brother’s folded robes, the red and white Uchiha symbol facing outward. His sword is hung vertically on the wall above it, a black ribbon tied around its sheath. 

Madara watches as Hashirama places the flower next to the robes, away from the candle. He bows his head after and clasps his hands together in a silent prayer. Madara wonders if it would bother Izuna, if this was Hashirama damning him to see his spectre tonight, but when his friend is finished and looks at him, his thoughts shift to something else, something more volatile. There’s a tenderness in his eyes that makes Madara want to peel off his own skin because no, no-one’s eyes should ever look at him in such a way, especially Hashirama’s. When he feels a hand wrap around his own, his spiral comes to a screeching halt and he stares at Hashirama’s hand holding his. 

“If you want to take the day off, you can. I’ll be in the office.” 

He manages to nod, and feels his hand be squeezed once before it's alone again. Hashirama leaves quietly, and the moment the door closes, Madara turns to stare at the flower. He doesn’t know how to take care of lilies. Would he have to change its water? If so, how often? What if he had to give it food, of some sort? Madara had seen Hashirama drop different pellets into different soil depending on whatever plant he was trying to help grow, what if Madara fed it the wrong one? Would it harm it?

He thinks of the flower dying, of it drying up or rotting, its discolored and bruised petals resting on Izuna’s robes, and something in him snaps. The first sob that tears through him is dry and loud, and Madara clamps a hand over his mouth to muffle the second, third and fourth that follow. 

He knows it was during war, knows it was during battle and death was a part of that but why did it have to be _his_ brother? Why not another Uchiha? Why did it have to be only his brother and not also Hashirama’s?

“No,” he says out-loud, to himself, to the quickly fading warmth by his door that can’t hear him. 

He’s so fucking _selfish._

He’s assaulted by flashes of Hashirama grieving, of Hashirama holding white fur that’s matted with wet crimson that slowly turns brown over time. He tries to remember Izuna in life, but the sounds of his laughter are warped, and the edges of his face when not smeared with blood and dirt are hazy. Their father had always told him not to use the Sharingan for meaningless tasks. The power to record life in perfect detail, and their lineage dictated them to only do so when life was cruel. Madara recalls with perfect clarity the first man he killed, the first time Izuna was seriously wounded, the time he saw a sword slice open his father’s stomach, parts of his body never meant to see daylight spilling onto the ground. He remembers the sounds Izuna made moments before he passed, and the way his hand had weakly searched for Madara’s to urge him on, to press his fingers into his eyes in place of a proper goodbye. 

All of it had been years ago, now. Time had begun to pass by Madara without his say so. 

He’s a man and he’s a soldier and he’s the head of his clan, death is not a stranger to him, and yet he couldn’t move on. It shouldn’t matter, not anymore, but it does and it does every time he sees Tobirama mimic Hashirama unknowingly, moving a hand in a similar manner or saying a ‘ _tch_ ’ in the same way his older brother had the day before, in another conversation. Madara feels another set of revolting sobs threatening to rattle his brittle frame again, and forces himself to stop. He bites into his cheek until the metallic taste of his blood soaks his tongue, and he feels confident enough that his legs won’t give out as he drags his body to his room.

He fully expects to see Izuna that night, lingering in the hall or behind him in the bathroom mirror, but he doesn’t. 

He doesn’t dream. He sleeps until the next morning.

__

Hashirama declares the first official holiday for the village on a breezy, autumn morning. The trees that make up the surrounding forest haven’t changed much in color, but there are still some orange and yellow hues to the fallen leaves gathering throughout the village. Scarves are loosely wrapped around villagers and there’s talk of preparation for the winter. 

Although it’s been years since the Village Hidden in the Leaves had actually been founded, it hadn’t dawned on their Hokage that there wasn’t any official celebration of the day. Him and Madara had to forcefully attend a multitude of celebrations, ranging from giving a speech to the village as a whole to accepting the gifts given to them by the bakers, florists and craftsmen. Madara had politely uttered his thanks and gave his curt nods, but there was one gift he _actually_ liked. A blacksmith had bowed in front of him and upon Madara and Hashirama explaining that the traditional courtesy was unneeded, unfolded himself and reached behind his back to a weapon that was hidden in white wrappings. Once those fell away, Madara’s eyes widened and from somewhere in the room, someone let out a quiet _wow_. 

“A gunbai, my lord. I have carved it from a spirit tree, and have used the finest quality of metals. I do hope it meets your expectations in battle.” 

Madara had stepped forward, reaching out for the weapon. The man placed it in his hands, and Madara realized that there was a chain wrapped around the long handle. He let it unfurl and held the end of it in one hand, the handle in another. The battle fan was wide and white, with a tomoe print on one side.

“Thank you,” Madara had said, and it was evident that this gratitude was earnest. 

Now, the day had grown colder and it was night, the festivities dwindling down to bars offering free drinks and bonfires scattered throughout the village, various clans proudly wearing flamboyant and dramatic adornations in their hair and on their clothes as they danced and sang.

Madara’s tipsy. He’s wearing a thin, black kimono, finer than the clothes he typically wore. Although black by his neck and shoulders, once the fabric reached his abdomen it began to fade into white, leading to the design of a bird, a hawk, curled nearly into a perfect circle, its red eye staring out from the cloth. Beneath it, waves erupted and overlapped one another, the rest of the kimono fading out into a deep azure. He’s sitting on a stitched red cushion, one leg outstretched underneath the low table in front of him, and as he leans forward to pour himself another drink, he realizes he might be a bit more than tipsy when the world swirls. He huffs to himself when he nearly drops his cup, and has his eyes twirl into red and black to stabilize his hands. 

Alright, he’s drunk. _Very_ drunk. 

“I could have poured it for you,” Hashirama states. 

Madara shakes his head, “No, you have to focus, you’re already losing.” 

Hashirama groans beside him, resting an elbow on the edge of the table to rest his chin in his hand. He’s staring down at the shogi game he and Madara are playing, frowning.

“I just don’t get it, aren’t you drunk?”

Madara snorts, “What of it?”

Hashirama points an accusing finger at him, “You’re still playing well, it isn’t fair.”

Madara flicks the finger away from him, “I think it’s plenty fair. I always beat you, sober or inebriated.” 

Hashirama looks away from him to the board again, and he can see a glint of mischief in the other’s eyes. 

“Could you pour me another drink?”

Madara cocks his head to the side and knocks his foot under the table against Hashirama’s. 

“I thought you just offered to pour my own.”

“Please, Madara?”

He lets out a sigh but does it anyway, narrowing his eyes as he nearly pours the sweet alcohol onto the table. He manages to pour out two cups, another one for himself, with only a few spilled drops and smirks to himself, satisfied. When he hands it to Hashirama however, the brute knocks his hand into his and spills the drink onto the board and the table. 

“Oops.”

“Hashirama!”

“I guess we should set the pieces to dry, they are wooden after-all.”

“Unbelievable,” Madara says. He’s trying his hardest to look angry but small laughs keep slipping past his facade, the corner of his lips twitching. When Hashirama picks up the board, he seems to have forgotten the actual play pieces on it and before Madara can point the mistake out, they skid and fall onto the table, some landing against others and shooting out in various directions to the floor. 

“I’m not picking those up, that’s your fault.”

Hashirama gives him an injured look but nevertheless pushes the table away from them in order to stand up. When he does, he sways, and Madara reaches out to support his legs. 

“How drunk are you?” he asks.

Instead of an answer Hashirama tries to take a step, only to slowly raise his arms and stretch them out to either side, trying to balance himself.

“Shit” he says, and Madara has to bite his cheek to keep from kneeling over in laughter. 

“Hold on you idiot, let me help you.”

When he moves to stand up himself, the walls of Hashirama’s home seem to inflate and shrink suddenly. Madara sways, but with a gulp and a clench of his hands he manages to will himself to stand upright. He looks at Hashirama, who is staring, and gives him a quizzical look. Before he has a chance to question him, Hashirama takes a step, wobbles, and instantly reaches out for support by grabbing onto Madara’s arm. Almost immediately, the two fall, Madara yelping as he lands on Hashirama, who begins to laugh so hard his body is shaking. 

“Why would you try holding onto me,” Madara yells, although it's far from angry or frustrated, “I’m _also_ drunk.” 

He moves to push himself off of Hashirama, one hand on the floor the other on the man’s chest, but a weight settles on his lower back, and Madara looks down at the culprit. Hashirama’s eyes are glossy and his lips are slightly parted as he regains his breath, the skin of his neck and right shoulder bare, his kimono having become loose during the whole ordeal. The hand on Madara’s back presses down, and he leans in. 

Their lips meet gently, timidly. It doesn’t suit either of them, neither Madara or Hashirama have ever known how to be passive, how to not brazenly fight for whatever they wanted, but this isn’t a fight. It isn’t the echoes of their blades clashing against one another battle after battle, or the sound of their fists splitting open each other’s skin in place of unkept promises and words. It’s different. It is the river they met one another as boys, the laughter that would bubble out of Hashirama at some challenge Madara swore he had won but hadn’t. It’s the promise of a dream whisked into reality, and Madara finds himself wanting more and more. He lets his weight push into the man underneath him, and they both make a low sound in the back of their throats in response. 

They kiss again and again, and eventually Hashirama switches their roles, holding onto Madara as he presses him against the floor. He doesn’t protest when he’s held, nor when he feels hands slip past his clothes to touch his hips, to pass over his stomach, stopping to rub and push curious but cautious fingertips into nearly every single scar Hashirama manages to find on him without looking. 

“I’ve given you some of these,” Hashirama says quietly, somberly, and Madara frowns. He places a hand on one of Hashirama’s cheeks, his thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. His voice is soft when it comes out but he’s not embarrassed, to his own surprise. He has always been so lonely, so brittle, and Hashirama’s here, right now, with him. He wouldn’t lose him to the past. 

“I’ve never minded.” 

They stare at one another, and Madara wishes he had something to say, but he’s never been one for words, not like the ones he wishes he could say. He’s never allowed anyone to become so important to him other than Izuna, and he was his younger brother. The way Hashirama’s looking at Madara is a liability, and it stirs a happiness he’s fought hard to hold down in him that clashes with the feral desperation he still has to be untouchable and unknowable. It’s dizzying and overwhelming, but before the cobwebs that cling to his mind can bound him, he feels Hashirama’s open mouth on his neck. 

He loses track of time after that, as if the man-made concept had any true power amongst the two of them. When his hair is splayed out above and around him, curlier than usual because of the heat they’re generating, and his kimono is open, no stretch of his pale, marred skin hidden from Hashirama, the man suddenly stops. Madara fears he’s done something wrong, that his body has moved in an unpleasant way or has made an unappealing sound, or worst of all that this is just another dream, but then Hashirama’s face becomes a shade redder than before.

“Are you sure about this?” 

Madara blinks. 

“What?” 

Hashirama frowns,“I asked you if you were sure about this.” 

“Am I _sure_ about this?” he parrots. He motions towards his bare body with a hand, the other busy pressing a finger tip against Hashirama’s puffy, nearly bruised lips. Hashirama scoffs but kisses the finger. 

“I mean, we’re on the _floor.”_

Madara tilts his head, “Do you prefer a bed? The wall?”

“ _Madara.”_

He sighs loudly, feigning a great deal of effort, and moves to put both hands on Hashirama’s face, cupping his cheeks. The fattier bits of them squish, and Madara smiles softly.

“I’ve only ever been yours, Hashirama Senju.” 

It feels like he’s on fire. His blood is boiling, helplessly reacting to a set of firm hands when they take hold of his hips, when they let go and reappear in his hair, tugging on and knotting raven strands around fingers, and when they hold his face sternly, fully in control as lips reconnect. He wants to scream, for some reason. He wants it to never stop, wants to indulge in his greediness when it comes to Hashirama, and when his eyes swirl to show his Sharingan, Hashirama doesn’t say anything. He continues on, and when he readjusts his hips, gripping Madara’s thighs with his arms to move him as well, Madara crosses an arm over his face, muffling the sounds that quickly climb out of his throat. 

He’s sore all over the next morning. He wakes up to the sensation of something warm against his temple, and groans as he opens an eye to look, squinting when he sees Hashirama standing above him. They’re upstairs in his bed, and Madara doesn’t have the mental capacity this early to question the change in environment. 

“Where are you going?” he manages to croak out. A traitorous part of him is shouting that his doubts prior to the night before were right, that it hadn’t meant as much to the man looking at him as it did to him. 

“I have a brief meeting I may have forgotten about and uh, don’t have a change of clothes, and if Tobirama sees me in the clothes from last night or _your_ clothes I fear he’ll finally pull through with his threats of wringing my neck.”

Madara closes his eyes again, “Do I have to attend?”

He feels a hand brush some strands of hair from his face to behind his ears. He knows they won’t stay there but Madara’s chest tightens anyways. 

“No,” Hashirama laughs. “Even if you had to, I can’t imagine you actually going right now.”

Madara huffs and turns to face the other way. When he hears the door downstairs close, and feels Hashirama’s chakra slowly becoming further and further away, he presses the tips of his fingers on one of his hands to his lips. 

__

Months pass, and the incessant itch that the residue of time’s passage typically left on Madara’s skin has slowly begun to fade. Hashirama stays the night at his home often, and more than once has Tobirama caught them after a quick kiss or embrace in the office or at Hashirama’s home. He doesn’t address their situation, but Madara is amused one night when the three of them are at a bar with Aoki, Kanda and Hiruku. Tobirama, after Aoki had poured him yet another drink, pointed a finger at him after Hashirama had leaned in to whisper something flirty into his ear. 

“Really? In public?”

Madara had laughed at Hashirama’s embarrassed expression, and pointed a finger right back at Tobirama. 

“Would you rather see us in private? I promise we aren’t nearly as prude.” 

Madara’s home when he remembers the memory, shaking his head to himself as a single candle burns by him, a book open on his lap. It isn’t something strange when he feels Hashirama show up at his doorstep, but when he opens the door he knows something is wrong. The man’s shoulders are tense and his face is uncharacteristically solemn, his eyes looking through Madara. He steps out of the way but Hashirama doesn’t enter. 

“Did the visit from the Uzumaki clan go that horribly?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest. If they had become a threat, he would make them regret it. 

Hashirama finally looks at him, and Madara lowers his arms. 

“I am to be married to one of their own, Mito Uzumaki.”

“Oh,” is all he can say. 

___

They don’t talk about it that night.

Instead, Madara takes a day away from the village to think, secluding himself to finding and watching wild falcons, spearing a few fish for dinner, and taking down a couple of trees for the twenty-four hours. When he returns he nearly kicks Hashirama’s door off its hinges and rushes at him. Tobirama is concerned for a moment, Madara notices the twitch his hand makes towards his weapons pouch, but he leaves almost instantly after. Hashirama doesn’t react to Madara, he lets him punch him once, right into his gut. When he raises his fist a second time, Hashirama stops it. Madara wishes he had stopped the first. 

His brain starts to bombard him relentlessly, and Madara can only breathe, in and out, as he thinks of the woman and how he refuses to be second to her. He won’t be an afterthought for Hashirama to touch and love, but then hasn’t he always? That train of thought plummets his heart into an icy grip. 

He’s always been second to Hashirama’s brother, second to being Hokage, second strongest on the battlefield. The gathering of realizations slices through him slowly, like a serrated knife, and his mind replays each and every single moment Hashirama has chosen another over him. He knows it’s a spiral and that realistically, he has no right, no stake to claim with Hashirama, but he tumbles and tumbles until he can envision leaving the village, imagines how leaving it behind would make him the first to do so, the first of something for himself. 

“Madara?”

He doesn’t realize he’s crying. He feels the tears gliding down his cheeks too late and glances up to see Hashirama staring, a dip in his brow Madara wants to smooth out. Only then does he realize his eyes are red pools of chakra, and he thinks of how he’s lost count of the amount of times they’ve engraved into his memory Hashirama’s lips moving to form his name. 

They quietly spin to black, and Hashirama sighs and drops their hands. 

“I told her about you.”

“What about me?”

It’s venomous and scalding but it’s what Madara has always been, what he has always been meant to be. Why had he acted better, expected better?

“About us as children, about our brothers, about us at war. About us now.”

Us. Us. _Us_ . It was so easy for Hashirama to say, why couldn’t it be easy for him to feel. Madara doesn’t reply. It hurts. It _hurts_ . There is no room for her in their _us_. 

“She won’t tell others, as if they don’t already know.” 

He snaps, “As if that matters. Do you wish to lay with her and then me? Is that it?”

Hashirama looks wounded, and Madara closes his eyes. 

_You don’t get to do this, you do not get to look like that._

“Madara, do you think so little of me? It’s political, we both know that, _she_ knows that. I even suggested she find her own lover. We will have a child and that is all.”

A child.

He says the word like it’s weightless, like it doesn’t signify a whole new world, a life that can be lost. 

“For the clan. I imagine you will as well one day.”

“I will not,” Madara states, but he doesn’t push Hashirama away when he wraps his arms around him, as ill as it makes him feel. 

He knows it’s a stupid question, “Do you love her?”

“I’ve barely known her for three days. Would anyone?”

It isn’t the answer he wants or that he really needs. He thinks back to the dreams he used to have, to the sword that punctured his heart so easily and the metallic taste of his own blood coating his teeth. 

“ _Can_ you love her? Can you see yourself loving her, in time?”

“Madara.”

“Answer me, Hashirama.”

He steps back from Madara, and runs a hand down his face. 

“I don’t _know_ . I don’t know how she will be, I don’t know how _I_ will be, but I do know you, and us and I-” he stops himself and looks down at his palms as he opens his hands. “She will never replace you, she will never come _close_ to. You’re my gift from the divine, Madara. Please try to understand.” 

___

He’s returning from a diplomatic mission with Sunagakure the day Mito gives birth. There is still sand clinging to his skin and clothes when one of the falcons he had taught Hashirama how to handle to send messages for just the two of them, Taiki, meets him a little over half a day away from the village. The message tied to his back is short and simple in Hashirama’s straight, clear handwriting: _Mito in labor. Come home soon._

Madara’s hands begin to shake as he reads it. This wasn’t news, this was far from a surprise, and yet he felt fear take hold of his spine with a vice grip. How would he react to meeting the infant, to meeting the embodiment of Hashirama and another’s lov- _no,_ that isn’t it. 

Madara had to remind himself of that. 

Guilt quickly overshadowed any fear. How can he possibly think to blame the child he hasn’t even met yet for his position? Mito and him have managed to form something similar to a friendship since their initial meeting. Madara would never call what was between them _warm_ but they were far better from when she had first met him, and his eyes had betrayed him and shown the jealousy he held before he had excused himself from the room. And yet, something gnawed at him. He stared at the paper, his eyes trailing over each groove filled with dry ink over and over again. 

What if he fucked up? He had held his siblings as infants, had cradled them during frigid nights and helped feed them and watched them grow into children and teenagers, but they still died. They had all died, despite his efforts, despite his promises. 

But they weren’t at war anymore, were they?

Madara’s hands are rough and jagged and the infant would bleed at his touch if he were to hold them. Had he been gentle enough with his own siblings? Had he been tender to Izuna? He wonders if Izuna, touched by his hands that were never fully cleansed of the blood they shed, had been marked for fate to take away, as reparation. Taiki readjusts on his arm, and Madara winces as one of his talons digs too hard into his skin. He looks over at the falcon and sighs, patting his head with his other hand. He folds the message after and shoves it into a pocket. 

He’s afraid, he’s nervous, but he’s determined. Peace had infiltrated the way Madara Uchiha had lived his life, and the child of the man who had helped it do so would not see death until it came in a natural way. 

When he arrives at the village he’s not surprised it takes Hashirama more than a few minutes to send a clone to him. He’s already heading to the hospital when a clone spots him. It doesn’t stop talking the moment he nears him, instead wrapping a hand around one of his wrists and dragging him across the village to the hospital. He swears his entire stomach is going to promptly depart from his mouth the closer they get to Mito’s room, but when Hashirama’s clone disappears in front of a door and Madara pushes it open, he’s assaulted by the sight of a family.

Tobirama is seated at an armchair in the corner of the room, peering up from a scroll he most likely brought to the office to gaze at him. There’s a mellow look to his eyes that Madara finds strange, but then he sees Hashirama seated by Mito, a bundle of fabric held in his arms. Madara’s captivated. In all the years he had known Hashirama, he had never seen him hold something, _someone,_ so adoringly. He feels it's something he shouldn’t be witnessing, something intimate that should be taking place without his presence, but then Hashirama leans forward to whisper something to Mito, who nods. He stands up after and looks at Madara, mouth wide in a smile, and motions for him to come closer. 

When he holds the child, it isn’t perfect. It isn’t what he had pictured for himself years ago as a boy, as a yearning, desperate teenager and finally as a brittle man, but when the child makes a gurgling noise and shifts, comfortable in his arms, it’s good enough. 

__

He loves the child. Her hair is a strange mix of the well-known Uzumaki red and the common Senju brown, and her eyes are so round and curious. Mito watches him one afternoon, the humidity summer swept in starting to thicken the air in the village. He’s sitting with his legs criss-crossed, the child on his lap. She’s watching him with wide eyes, reaching out to curl her chubby fingers in the mane of his hair that he has moved over his shoulder for her delight. She’s a few months old now, and Madara has started to notice something similar to Hashirama’s energy flowing through her, although wildly less powerful. There’s a sense of familiarity when he holds her, and Madara finds himself smiling more often than not when he is with her. She starts to giggle and he huffs, nudging one of her pudgy cheeks with a finger.

“What is it, little one? What amuses you so?” 

She tugs on his hair roughly, content gurgling sounds bubbling out from her afterwards. Madara winces and gently prys her fingers off. From across the room he hears a muffled chuckle and looks over to see Mito covering her mouth with a hand, the hints of a smile in the crevices of the dimples in her cheek. He thought he would hate her forever when he had met her. He thought he would carve out yet another space in his heart for a new type of anger, but he hadn’t. 

He doesn’t hate her. He’s in her home, holding her child. 

“She really loves you,” she says. 

He stares at her, dumbfounded. Something in him shifts out of place, and there’s a surge of _something_ in his chest but it doesn’t hurt. It’s nowhere near painful, but Madara feels as if his body wants to weep all the same. He looks away from her and to the child now staring at his foot, as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. 

When his eyes bleed into red to capture the simple memory into his mind for a soundless eternity, the sensation is a pool of warmth rather than the usual sea of searing anguish. 

__

They’re away on a mission to meet the other Kages, Madara doubling as Hashirama’s body-guard while acting as a diplomat. They’re about a day away from the nearest village, staying the night at a road-side inn, tucked away slightly into the mountainside. Outside of their room, in a small garden area privately closed off with a wooden fence, Hashirama is lying on the cool grass. Madara had complained that it would stain his lighter clothes, but lies beside him anyways, his head resting on Hashirama’s chest. He can feel each of his breaths, and his eyes flutter close as he counts the seconds in between his inhales and exhales. 

“I love you,” Hashirama says. 

Madara doesn’t stir, “I know.”

“Madara, I _love_ you,” he repeats, sounding halfway between determined and surprised. Madara takes the bait and sits up, looking over at Hashirama quizzically.

“What is this about?”

At least the other man looks as confused as he feels when he responds to him. 

“I–that’s the first time I’ve said it to you, isn’t it? Word by word?”

Madara cocks his head to the side and thinks back. His stomach churns innocently, as if he hasn’t tasted Hashirama on his tongue dozens of times or has come to know how he sounds completely debauched. The cicadas clinging to trees far from them are singing their shrill symphonies and the world is living around them, despite how time feels stalled for him, hiccuping on the same moment. 

Hashirama loves him, and he has known, oh, he has always known. 

“It is, isn’t it?” he says. 

All at once, Hashirama is kissing him. He repeats the three words as he kisses his lips, and again when he moves on to kiss his cheeks and temples, and again when he’s kissing his neck and places a hand flat against his stomach, pushing him back down onto the grass. 

__

They’re older, they’re older and Madara is holding one of Hashirama’s hands in his own, the sunlight trickling onto their skin from the leaves above them in delicate crescent moons. Mito is inside, possibly starting the cold tea Madara had asked for minutes ago. 

It’s strange, but it isn’t unwelcome. Her lover for many years, a Hyūga who still did not sit right with Madara due to varying clan practices, is inside as well, playing with Hashirama’s daughter. Madara can hear the muted sound of childish laughter coming from behind screen doors, accompanied by a sudden _bang_ followed by a suspicious silence. 

Hashirama suddenly startles and lets go of Madara’s hand to move his own in the air animatedly. He’s remembering how he forgot to inform Madara of his idea for a community greenhouse, with enough space for various community gardens since the inclusion of more clans has resulted in less space for private gardens and yards. 

There’s a methodology to the way he moves his hands and expresses his emotions so clearly on his face, unashamed and not afraid. Madara is half listening, lolling his head to the side as he watches Hashirama simply be, a faint breeze rustling some of the leaves hovering over them and Hashirama’s hair. The lines of age are slowly but surely starting to cement under his eyes and in his cheeks, still somehow way less prominent than the ones belonging to Tobirama or Madara himself. Hashirama pauses for a moment, before sheepishly placing a hand behind his head and saying a casino could also work for a source of entertainment. 

It hits him then, cementing him into the ground he’s sitting on and slithering like a misplaced vine he had forgotten about and let grow, twisting and squeezing on his heart until words tumbled out. 

“I love you,” he says, and it dawns on him he hasn’t said it before. Not once, not even when Hashirama had said it, years ago now. They’re such old men, older than their fathers had ever become. 

Hashirama smiles, and it's dazzling to watch the way his skin creases around the corner of his lips and how deep dimples emerge in his cheeks. Years of standing near and against Hashirama, and it’s still incredible how the world around him seemed a bit lighter, a bit more full of life. Madara wants to stay by him until the end of time, and when Hashirama leans towards him and presses his lips against his temple, he knows he can. 


End file.
